


Forgiven

by impetuousfool



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, canon-typical asshole behaviour, did elias know peter died? now he does!, not gonna lie to you i felt an emotion writing this, spoilers for ep 159, this was not betad we die like kings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24328036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impetuousfool/pseuds/impetuousfool
Summary: Elias is watches his work unfold in the Lonely through the eyes of Peter Lukas, and subsequently feels everything he does.
Relationships: Peter Lukas/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 18
Kudos: 30





	Forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> cw for dismissal of trauma, and elias also making fun of martin & his relationship of jon in similar ways to his usual manner

The threads of his plan had already been growing towards his throne long before Peter was involved, thick and bulbous realisations of his plans for the world, for his patron’s domain. Jon’s departure to the Forsaken’s mists was just another one of Peter’s brattish outbursts, exactly the one he expected from the sailor, and it was just what he needed. The final mark. All to save his Martin, the Archive’s doomed damsel, in love with an unreachable Archivist.

The Watcher’s Crown sat attentive around his old head, a beautiful reminder of his victory, the threads he’d woven together so neatly. The years didn’t matter, the flesh he’d stolen didn’t matter.  _ Martin _ didn’t matter. Jon would understand. 

The Watcher’s knowledge flooded his old body and he drank it in, greeting the unending eyes of his patron with enthusiasm. So he watched from the new seat in his office, old eyes rolling in a new skull. He watched his little Archivist fumble through the Lonely after his pet, all through the eyes of his poor, abandoned Captain Lukas. They’d both always known both of them would give up the other to win this eldritch war.

Smug elation flooded him as Jon demanded Peter give his  _ statement  _ like a common avatar, the Watcher’s power flooding him. The Archivist at his full potential. A plan unfolding around him, rippling through him. Fourteen marks, and he was ready. The Archivist would know what it was to be showered in horror, to be the lens through which a god saw the world. This was his becoming.

Elias didn’t care much for the Captain’s old tales of his family and the Lonely’s grasp on him. They were late-night stories he’d told to fill the time, and getting lost in Peter’s sorrow had never been high on his to-do list. He spent little time away from the sea, much of it spent doing things much more satisfying than discussing his mother’s mistreatment of him. However, he could feel the losses of his siblings pained him, such a terrible trait for one of the Forsaken to have. 

Something ached in Peter, a crushing realisation that he’d been used, that this was all Elias had wanted. An acknowledgement that he’d been played so very carefully over the years, but Elias hadn’t expected the  _ hurt _ that Peter felt, the way in which he cared so deeply that all he’d ever been was a pawn. The quiet, despairing love as he told Jonathan, the Archivist,  _ no.  _ Waves of terror and pain under the piercing stare of his own creation, heartbreak ripping through him like an earthquake. And Elias felt it all, the layers of love he’d never thought to acknowledge, too occupied in plots and manipulation. 

_ I forgive you. _

He felt it, a delicate, outstretched hand towards the Panopticon, towards his safe, comfortable office chair, while pain rippled through his body. The gentleness felt so jarring against the tearing pain, but it lasted seconds before all he could feel was the Eye ripping Peter apart, shredding the things that made him Peter Lukas, obliterating the atoms that’d formed him from nothing. A mind burning from the inside, screaming for mercy from an eager god that delighted in his pain. Wiped from existence in a massacre of betrayal and agony. And Jon was gone. He was aware of him, like a distant, misty figure through glass, but he couldn’t See him. He couldn’t See Martin either, but they were together, reunited like fools, unaware of the apocalypse to come.

Beasts fought below, savage Hunters tearing one another to shreds as Daisy gave into her nature. He sat silent and thought, closed his eyes for once, and just thought. He pulled a hand to his cheek and it came back embarrassingly damp, like a common widow. Love. The Lonely thrived on the absence of it, and yet he felt more of it in Peter than most. The ring on his finger burned, but it was  _ good.  _ He liked the agony. A reminder.

_ Forgiven.  _ No, he didn’t think he was.


End file.
